{"id":38922,"date":"2023-11-15T12:23:13","date_gmt":"2023-11-15T17:23:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=38922"},"modified":"2023-11-15T12:23:18","modified_gmt":"2023-11-15T17:23:18","slug":"tax-collector-warns-homeowners-of-pace-home-service-loan-offers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2023\/11\/15\/tax-collector-warns-homeowners-of-pace-home-service-loan-offers\/","title":{"rendered":"TAX COLLECTOR WARNS HOMEOWNERS OF \u2018PACE\u2019 HOME SERVICE LOAN OFFERS"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Tax Collector for Polk County, Joe G. Tedder, is urging homeowners to beware and to proceed with caution when approached with \u2018PACE\u2019 agreements to pay for energy-efficient and storm-hardening features on their property tax bills!&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"560\" height=\"292\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1110px) 100vw, 1110px\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/PACE-Stock-Photo.jpg?resize=560%2C292&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-38923\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/PACE-Stock-Photo.jpg?w=560&amp;ssl=1 560w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/PACE-Stock-Photo.jpg?resize=300%2C156&amp;ssl=1 300w\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Property Assessed Clean Energy, or PACE, offers a loan program to property owners for home and commercial improvements dealing with energy conservation and efficiency on items such as solar panels, roof improvements, storm shutter installation, etc. The sales pitch is, you don\u2019t have to worry about making regular loan payments for the improvements as it will instead be added to your tax bill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI want to warn people of the financial risk of this type of loan, when such large payments come due at the same time as their tax bills,\u201d said Joe G. Tedder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This financing option is gaining a reputation in neighboring Florida counties for saddling property owners with debt they cannot afford, while using the power of government to collect the debt. If the debt is not paid, the owner will lose their property.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI hate telling people there is nothing that can be done to save their property from being sold for unpaid taxes, especially when I feel most property owners are being hoodwinked into these types of loans,\u201d Tedder continued.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThere is never a free ride, but PACE and their contractors make it sound as if there is,\u201d he goes on to say, \u201cand as a believer of small government, I also feel private businesses should not use the property tax bill as an instrument to collect consumer debt.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On Tuesday June 6, 2023, the Polk County Board of Commissioners (BoCC) passed a resolution in support of the Tax Collector\u2019s stance that PACE loans should not exist in unincorporated Polk County.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cDon\u2019t be fooled. If an offer seems too good to be true, it usually is. If you are approached by a loaning institution or contractor saying your property improvements will be paid for on the tax bill, be careful. Be very careful,\u201d Tedder cautioned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Tax Collector for Polk County, Joe G. Tedder, is urging homeowners to beware and to proceed with caution when approached with \u2018PACE\u2019 agreements to pay for energy-efficient and storm-hardening&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":38923,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[9],"tags":[6742],"class_list":["post-38922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","tag-tax-collector-warns-homeowners-of-pace-home-service-loan-offers"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38922"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38922\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}